This invention relates to an above ground safety shelter that provides protection from dangerous events such as microbursts, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, and personal attack. While the shelter is suitable for general use, it is specifically configured for use in conjunction with manufactured housing and mobile homes.
There are numerous areas of the United States and other parts of the world that are periodically exposed to tornadoes, storms, and the like, especially during the spring and fall months. Within the United States, tornadoes can occur in any state, but are more frequent in the Midwest, Southeast, and Southwest. The states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas are at the greatest risk.
Mobile and manufactured homes are especially susceptible to damage from severe thunderstorms, tornadoes, hurricanes, and the like due to their light weight and fragile construction and inadequate or complete absence of anchoring mechanisms. Occupants of mobile and manufactured homes generally have no means of protection from an approaching tornado or storm. While highly desirable, mobile and manufactured homes are generally provided with little, if any, protection against high winds and storms by the owners of the lots upon which the homes are placed.
While heretofore, there have been several safety shelters which were intended for association with mobile or manufactured homes, they have encountered limited success for many reasons and deficiencies. Applicant is aware of only the following U.S. patents which are exemplary of the known prior art safety shelters intended for use with mobile or manufactured homes: U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,615,158 to Thornton and 5,481,837 to Minks, Jr. Applicant is unaware of any standalone above ground safety shelter.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,615,158 to Thornton discloses a safety shelter in communication with the interior of a mobile home. The shelter is an underground enclosure defined by an annular sidewall, a top, and a bottom. The top of the enclosure has an entrance and egress passageway in communication with both the mobile home and underground enclosure. The passageway is surrounded by a flexible and moveable sidewall. An associated stepladder is provided for allowing convenient ingress and egress. When the mobile home is moved, the passageway sidewall is removed, and the shelter sealed until a new mobile home is moved into place. The invention disclosed in Thornton requires a significant modification to the mobile home. Additionally, since the underground enclosure is anchored in concrete, the placement of another mobile home for communication with the underground enclosure would require precise location of the mobile home with respect to the underground enclosure and require further modifications to the newly placed mobile home.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,481,437 to Minks, Jr. discloses the combination of a mobile home and a safety shelter. The safety shelter is generally rectangular in configuration and includes four side walls, a bottom wall, a top wall which also serves as a floor of the stoop for the front entrance of the mobile home, and an access door in one of the side walls. A set of steps is provided to enable a person to easily move between the ground and the floor of the stoop. The safety shelter is partially buried below the ground level and extends partially above the ground level.
Respecting the present invention, key constraints driving the creative process were time spent in shelter per event, size of shelter, level of protection provided, low cost, manufacturability, retro fit to an existing dwelling, access from inside a dwelling, ease of installation, and transportability.
The estimated time spent in the shelter per tornadic event was used to set the scope of the invention. Given current storm cell tracking and weather warning technology, and typical reluctance to seek shelter without a visual or audible cue, actual time in the shelter need only be on the order of a few minutes. This short in-shelter time interval makes a geometrically small shelter tolerable.
The acceptability of a small shelter drives the level of protection provided and economics into desirable and marketable positions. Essentially, as the size of the structure decreases, the cost factors decrease, and most importantlyxe2x80x94the protection to cost ratio increases significantly. In other words, a smaller structure can provide a much larger level of protection than a larger structure, given the constraint that they cost the same.
The need for quick access led to the development of the concept of having an access hatch internal to the dwelling or place of occupancy. The prospect of providing additional functionality led to the development of steps, hand rails, ramps, and canopies which allow the invention to dually serve as entry platform to a dwelling or place of occupancy.
Finally, successful sales and marketing demand low cost. Meeting this requirement is achieved by using low cost materials, existing manufacturing production line capabilities, quantity buying power, distributed manufacturing systems, and maintaining compatibility with existing transportation and handling equipment.
In accordance with the preferred embodiment of the present invention, an improved above ground safety shelter is provided for safely housing and protecting one or more people during stormy and tornadic weather. While the preferred embodiment of the invention is envisioned for use with mobile and manufactured homes, it can be used as a standalone safety shelter positioned some distance from another structure.
The preferred embodiment of the safety shelter of the present invention generally comprises an above ground enclosure including four trapezoid-shaped side walls, a bottom or floor, a top wall which also served as a front porch or stoop extending generally horizontally away from the entranceway or door of a mobile home, and means for accessing the enclosed area defined by the safety shelter. The shelter""s exterior geometric shape with sloped side walls provides optimal deflection of strong winds and blown debris and also provides an aerodynamic down force for the shelter. The shelter is of sufficient weight that, in combination with the aerodynamic down force applied to the shelter, does not require mandatory anchoring to the ground. The lack of rigid ground anchoring increases the shelter""s ability to dissipate and/or minimize absorption of collision impact energy via very small displacements relative to the size of the shelter.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an above ground safety shelter for safely housing one or more occupants.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide an above ground safety shelter having sloped or curvilinear side walls for deflecting strong winds and blown debris and providing aerodynamic down forces for positional stability.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a safety shelter for use with mobile or manufactured homes.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a safety shelter which is self-contained and does not depend upon the mobile home for any part of its structure and in certain embodiments not occupy more space than a mobile home without a safety shelter.